Wife, Mom, Me?

As a wife and mother, I am familiar with the problem of losing one’s identity in your family relationships and responsibilities. When I meet people I am guilty of introducing myself as my husband’s wife, or my children’s mom or stepmother. Very rarely have I introduced myself as just Heather Tucker without some other description. Many moms with children at home find it difficult to maintain a sense of who they are when they are constantly taking care of other people’s needs.  So much so that we begin to determine our worth by how well we meet other people’s needs, especially the needs of our families. If our husband is not happy, then we feel like a failure as a wife and think we are not meeting his needs. If our children misbehave and are unruly on a constant basis we feel we are a failure as a mother and are not meeting our children’s needs.  We base our success or failure in life on whether or not our husbands and children are happy and successful.

Another trap that we fall for is we suddenly one day see our mothers in our reflections and determine that we are just like our mothers! Nothing could be further from the truth! We may have inherited a few things from our moms but we are not our mothers. Which I am praising God for at this very moment. I love my mom dearly but I am eternally grateful that I am not her all over again.  With everything that a mom and wife has to do, keeping house, laundry, groceries, doctors visits, school functions, etc, it is no wonder that many a wife and mom suddenly look in the  mirror one day and wonder ‘Who is that person looking back at me?’. Add to that that many of us are overwhelmed on a daily basis by this thing called mothering that when we react in a way we later wished we hadn’t we feel even worse.

I have been struggling for the last year to rediscover who I am, beyond the identity of Matt’s wife, and my children’s mother.  I am those things, but I am also a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a writer, a novice historian, and a sci-fi nut! But above all of those I am a child of God!  John 1:12 clearly shows this. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

If we have received Christ as our Lord and Savior then we have the additional and more important identity as a child of God. He does call us as wives and mothers to take care of our families but not to lose ourselves and our identities in those roles.

God created each and every one of as unique individuals. Jeremiah 1:5 states “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart, says the Lord” He created us to be exactly who we are! He didn’t intend for us to consume ourselves with our families and our children and lose who He created us to be! First and foremost we are His child! There are many different roles in our lives for us to fill but we must never forget who we are or forget the other facets of our personalities that make us what we are. He gave those to us!!! We should enjoy them and use them to the best of our ability to serve Him. I know who I am, who are you?